MK1 Ford Focus Window Regulator

I didn't end up getting any video of this job because it was done 100% under duress..... So for awhile now.... like months, my drivers side window has been having trouble going up and down and making some cracks and pops in the process. I kept telling myself it probably just needs some lube on the tracks, it'll be fine, I'll get to it when I get to it. Well one day while trying to lower it, after some louder than usual noises it gave the final pop and fell down into the abyss..... It was a Sunday morning, I was dropping Maire off at the Metro station to go somewhere. I was going to do some things I wanted to do that morning, but in that second, my plans had been changed..... First stop, 7-11 for some much needed energy drink, this was no longer the casual coffee sipping morning I was hoping for, I needed to snap into ACTION.... Energy drink in hand, windows down on one of the hottest mornings we'd had to date, I bee lined back to the condo to tear down and hope for the best.....

You may have already gathered, I was NOT happy about this. I didn't want to be spending money on this car, time on this car, or be doing this at all on this day. In addition, I was getting ready to start a part time job, I'd just come off of some classes...... Long story short, I did not go into this carefully..... I was not really concerned what broke along the way as long as the car had a working window in the end..... So I pulled the door panel off. I must say, after coming from the Honda world, this Focus door panel is the best attached door panel I've seen! It was also the easiest to reattach too. I snapped this as a reference point because I knew I was going into this without a clear head.

After removing the splash guard in a...... less than reusable way...... I was able to see the inner workings. I immediately noticed a broken clip on the right. (or front depending on how your orient) I later noticed that the other side was broken as well so I jumped to this must be it and began my quest for finding obscure 12 year old parts on a Sunday.... Needless to say, that didn't work out. It was all for the better though. After admitting defeat for the day, calming down and becoming level headed once again, I combed through and processed all the info I'd taken in all day. I realized that these clips although broken, were only part of the problem. After recapping what I saw while moving the old regulator I realized, the whole thing was dead. The plus side, it was available at all auto parts store and not too expensive, the downside, I had this come to jesus moment at like 8pm on Sunday.....

So I removed the door glass so it wasn't flopping around inside the door, threw the basics back onto the bare door and went on my way. Visited some friends on Sunday night which was nice to get my head off of things, and then went to work on Monday. I wasn't able to get back to it until Tuesday. On Monday I picked up the parts and got everything together I'd need, and Tuesday I hit it....

I wish I had more "in progress pics," but like I said, this was very much done under duress.....

So I took this picture as a reference point for the regulator bolts. It's ALWAYS a good idea to take pics along the way for reference, may as well take advantage of this smartphone era we live in, right!? 

This was the old regulator after removing it. The design actually makes it VERY easy to remove and not as bad as you'd think reinstalling. I did the whole thing including reinstalling the door glass without help. Removing the door glass was actually much more difficult.

The old vs the new! The old one is on top, new on the bottom. As expected the new one is much faster and a little noiser. And also as expected, the passenger side which used to seem fast now seems slow..... 

Overall it was a very easy job, if I had to do it again, it would go real fast having done it once already. If the passenger side goes I'll make a video and an actual how-to.

The whole time I was doing this, I was angrily thinking how I wish I WOULD have held out for the manual window version I was intending to buy..... Either way, all turned out well in the end!

BONUS PIC:

Came back down from looking some parts up online and thought this was a fun pic..... Looked like the precursor to some Ken Block shit about to go down.... Monster, check. Ford hat, check, "rally inspired" look, check.....